The Gnostics: Myth, Ritual, and Diversity in Early Christianity

181 Pages·2010·0.53 MB·English

by  David Brakke

The
GNOSTICS

The
GNOSTICS
Myth, Ritual, and Diversity
in Early Christianity
David Brakke
Harvard University Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, En gland
2010
Copyright © 2010 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Brakke, David
The Gnostics : myth, ritual, and diversity in early
Christianity / David Brakke.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 978-0-674-04684-9
1. Gnosticism. 2. Church history—Primitive and early church,
ca. 30–600. I. Title.
BT1390.B69 2010
273'.1—dc22 2010018570
To Bentley Layton

CONTENTS
Preface ix
Abbreviations xiii
1 I magining “Gnosticism” and
Early Christianities 1
2 I dentifying the Gnostics and
Their Literature 29
3 T he Myth and Rituals of the
Gnostic School of Thought 52
4 U nity and Diversity in Second- Century Rome 90
5 S trategies of Self- Differentiation 112
Notes 141
Selected Bibliography of Primary Sources
in Translation 155
Index 157

PREFACE
This book argues for a part ic u lar approach to the study of ancient
“Gnosticism” and its rejection by “the Church.” As the traditional story
goes, a multiform religious movement, Gnosticism, arose in the fi rst two
centuries ce either as a mutation of Christianity or Judaism or as an in-
de pen dent religion that rapidly became intertwined with Christianity.
Gnosticism— whether Sethian Gnosticism or Valentinianism or, later,
Manichaeism—p osed a serious threat to the Church, which was infl uenced
by but eventually rejected it. The rejection of Gnosticism proved to be as
crucial to the Church’s developing orthodox character as its balanced ac-
cep tance and rejection of elements of “paganism” and Judaism.
In recent years both of the key characters in this story, Gnosticism and
the Church, have received heightened scrutiny from historians. As for
“Gnosticism,” some scholars argue that there was no single religious
phenomenon that we can identify as Gnosticism in antiquity, and so the
category itself is seriously fl awed and should be discarded. Others con-
tinue to think that Gnosticism either provides an important and useful
way to categorize a variety of religious movements or names an actual
religion that did exist. As for “the Church,” most scholars agree that
there was no single Church in the fi rst and second centuries, but a mul-
titude of competing groups, one of which began to emerge in the third
century as the dominant one and so can be called “proto-o rthodoxy.”
Others argue that even this picture of competing groups, because it cre-
ates rigid boundaries and static identities for discrete Christian groups
and schools, fails to capture the full diversity of Christian traditions be-
fore Constantine.
In this book I argue for a middle position on both of these questions.
I agree that the category “Gnosticism,” as traditionally conceived, does